


An Angelina's Veil Funeral

by Ravenous77



Category: None - Fandom, Original - Fandom
Genre: Fiction, Short Story, original - Freeform, prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-10
Updated: 2020-02-10
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:20:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22645528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ravenous77/pseuds/Ravenous77
Summary: Henry, having just lost his father, soon finds he has another problem to deal with.At his father's funeral, a familiar face greets him. A face smiling wide, a face wholly unwelcome.Eliza, wearing blue with teeth as white and noticeable as bone sticking out from flesh.Henry, coated in a red just like the bloodstains on his father's carpet.One says yes, the other begs for a no.
Kudos: 2





	An Angelina's Veil Funeral

They met at an Angelina's Veil funeral. In Angelina’s Veil, the funerals were quiet and furious. The town was just quarry, a pit in the ground. Buildings were built into solid stone. There, you lived and died in that quarry. But, an funerals were always held at the mouth of the quarry. That’s the only time Angelina’s pale people went up instead of down. 

It was said they did it because it was the only way to get the soul out of the ditch. Henry figured it just gave the people an excuse to get out of Angelina's gaping stone maw. 

He had to go, Henry. His mother dragged him up, and up, through the houses, the businesses, the markets, and the mines. Up, up, up they went. They went up the worn stone steps and finally, onto an emerald floor. The ground above was littered with crosses and mausoleums built from quarry stone. It seemed, even in death, they couldn’t escape the pit. 

In Angelina’s Veil, you dressed in gray, to match the stonework. You blended in like butterflies, trying hopelessly not to be seen. But on death days, you wore your colors. Colors so bright they’d make the sun have to shade its eyes, colors so passionate the fires blushed, and colors so sad, it’d make the stone cry. 

Henry was wearing red, his mother green, and her, well, she wore blue. 

Henry hovered by the colored cakes and dyed drinks, eating just slow enough he looked busy. Henry’s steel eyes burned holes into the golden table-cloth. He didn’t want to look, then it would make it real. 

The main reason to hold an Angelina’s Veil funeral was that someone died in the rocks. They died mining or were crushed by their homes. Earthquakes were common, but no one ever expected one. Henry thought every night, before closing his eyes in a simulation death, that he would be killed by the very thing that gave him shelter. He begged to be anywhere else. 

Henry’s father, Abraham, had other ideas. Abraham kept Henry in the mines. Said that “the boy had the mind for metal works.” Abraham pushed Henry to be a blacksmith’s apprentice. It was not ideal, slaving over hungry fires. But Henry did not have the voice, or the compassion, to speak out against his father’s ideas. 

Henry thought it funny, how Abraham pushed him to work so hard when all the man did was ready the Morning Quarry and sleep. Funny, how the very thing he hated saved his life. If it weren’t for him being at the metal works, and his mother picking up bloodless veins, the entire family would end up like Abraham; a fine paste against their gray rug. 

A girl snapped Henry out of his bloodstained memories. She said her name was Eliza. Eliza Veil. Henry almost moved his eyes to look at her, but behind her blue silk dress was the tragedy that was Abraham. Henry stopped slowly pushing cake into his mouth, and, like the mice that they could never really get rid of, whispered a hello. 

Eliza Veil, daughter of the esteemed and late as always Angelina Veil, stood there, smiling like she had just witnessed a murder. A smile so white, it reminded Henry of the holy ash they spread around the underground alters. It was a smile that said, “I promise to give this secret to every man and woman I know.” She had eyes to match. 

Eliza, loud as the earthquake that killed his father and several others, said she had met him before. 

“You work in the metal works, with my father! I knew I recognized you.” 

Her voice made Henry flinch. 

“Father says you’re the best there is! The only one worth his grass!” 

Henry, cleaning the cake out of his teeth with his tongue, pondered this for a moment. The only one worth his grass. He doubted that statement. Henry burnt water, turned steel into glass, and sharpened a pickaxe so well it couldn’t find it’s way through rice pudding. 

Henry flicked his eyes up, and mumbled, “Sir Veil often mentions how he should throw me into the bottom of the quarry so I end up as dead as my sister.” 

Eliza giggled at him. A giggle at a funeral, such an insult. Then again, this wasn’t the first time she had patronized him. At his sister’s funeral, she was wearing purple, and jokingly told him she should’ve held onto a rail. A rail that didn’t exist. She blamed Henry’s sister, Abbigale, for her own death. It was clearly a murder. A twisted way to die, being pushed out of a hospital. 

“I’m sorry for the Earthquake, I wish they built your homes like they did ours.” 

Another insult, this time directed towards the construction miners. Abraham made their house. Another funny thing to add to the list. 

“My father often said the rocks should know better by now.” 

Eliza glanced her dirt brown eyes at the cakes. Cakes his mother had made. 

Eliza had an odd fascination with Henry. She was unremovable cancer and she stuck to him like a newborn clutching a pick. Often times, Henry wished she was the one under the rock, wasting away to nothing while the rich drank away the money their workers had made. 

Sometimes, Henry wished she would be humbled. 

After a conversation that made him want to shout the quarry apart, he left the funeral. His father was already burned, his ashes canned and poured back into the stone. There was no reason for Henry to stay. His mother stood over Abraham’s bright red cross, whispering sweet nothings to a dead man. 

Henry put himself to work, something he clung to. He worked to clear his mind, and fill it with thoughts of failure instead of death. Henry tied his leather apron, a sturdy dark gray thing that kept the coals off of his somber skin. Nothing about him shimmered, not like the metal against the fires. It was the one thing he enjoyed about the busywork. How the fire had color, and how it spread its passions to the metal, and to Henry if he wasn’t careful. 

Today, he wasn’t working on a pick. No, he was working on a gift. A gift, that if used correctly, would get Eliza to leave him alone. It was a ring. It was something he had worked hard on to perfect, it would be his metal masterpiece. Today he was inscribing it. He had claimed it came from an admirer, one who was long since buried. Adrian Holmes. Adrian was a friend of Henry’s, one who understood his silence. He had died in the mines, killed by an airborne poison. He was lucky to not be buried under his life’s work. 

Henry thought, if Eliza had someone else to focus on, a man who was no longer real, she would leave him alone. She would give Adrian her cursed smiles, and her wicked caresses. She would give Henry many moments of peace. 

The ring was finished. It was silver, as was everything else that wasn’t gray. It would stick out against the blinding colors the rich wore, and that was the hope. It would be something she’d notice, something that would catch her eye. 

Henry took off his apron and rushed up, up, up. Up to the manors. The ring sat contently in his one pocket. A pocket reserved only for small, special things. 

It was custom that the youngest blacksmith had to hand-deliver everything. Besides, if Henry did it, there would be no room for error. This way, his plan would be flawless. A sure-fire way of removing her from his life. 

Unless she didn’t take it. 

Henry composed himself, wiped the white dust from his pants, and knocked. It was the loudest sound he had ever made.

The stone door swung open, revealing a small woman. Much to Henry’s dismay, it wasn’t Eliza. It was Sir Veil’s new wife. She was nowhere near the quarry’s founder, a strong woman who dug the first ditch with her own hands. Angelina was someone to be admired. This woman was the person that had brought the demon Eliza into this world. This woman was a walking sin. 

Henry took a moment to build his courage. He was as loud as Eliza but significantly less confident. 

“Delivery for Lady Eliza Veil the Second.” 

There was a flicker of hate in the woman’s Eliza blue eyes. She held out her hand, took the ring, and slammed the door in Henry’s face. 

Henry called the woman the human embodiment of a pile of feces under his breath. Then, he silently left. 

The next morning, there was a soft knock at his home’s door. Henry rubbed his tired eyes, and, still in pajamas, answered the door. It was his curse. 

Eliza looked at the ground, fumbling with the ring. Her cheeks were as red as the stain on Henry’s carpet, and her dress matched. Henry glared at her until she spoke. 

“My mother…” she took a minute to find her words. 

“My mother says you gave this to me.” 

Henry’s glare turned into bewilderment. His steely gaze melted, and the small bit of pigment that was in his skin turned white. There was no way she could think the ring was from him. No way. 

“That ring isn’t from me.” Henry’s first sentence of the day, louder than he’d like it. 

“It says it is. Right on the inside. Inscribed just for me.” 

Henry felt like he was going to throw up. 

“My father says you’re worth your weight in grass.” 

An uncomfortable pause. 

“My mother says you aren’t made for me.” 

Another pause. 

“I say, yes.” 

“What?”

“Yes. I will marry you.” 

“Let me see the ring.” Henry couldn’t believe it. It wasn’t possible. 

Eliza bashfully gave Henry the ring. Clear as day, the ring said, “Both a gift and a question, both from Henry James.” 

That’s not what he put on the ring. Those weren’t his words. He didn’t want to marry her, he wanted her gone. Henry wanted her to go away, to chase someone other than him. 

Only then did he she Eliza’s father standing in the background, smiling like he had just witnessed a murder.

**Author's Note:**

> This is one of my older pieces and was actually an assignment for my past English class. While it appears unfinished, I assure you it isn't. I have no plans on adding more or creating any other writings pertaining to this piece. 
> 
> Thank you for taking a gander at it, comments are always appreciated.


End file.
